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Originally Posted by blankall
Firstly the Israeli polls did not indicate that....
As things got closer to the disengagement support fell below 50%. Keep in mind this is a population where 20-25% of the population is Arab. Even with that huge sway within the population they barely managed a majority in many polls and lost many polls:
http://zoa.org/2005/06/101974-new-is...n-drops-to-48/
There also no such thing as remoteness in Israel. Israel and the occupied territories are geographically tiny. Israel has many soldiers along the border with Jordan, regardless of whether they have settlements there. You're talking about the military deployment like they're deploying troops to far off Antartica. The Gaza Strip is 6-12 km wide. It's literally a 10 minute drive from the remotest parts to Israel.
What's going on is obvious and stated. Israel was fed up with negotiating and began their own unilateral plans. They were going to withdraw behind the West Bank barrier. At no point was it ever on the table that Israel would move back to 1967 "borders". The plan was always a final peace plan based on those borders with negotiated land swaps from territory in the North of Israel where there are Arab majorities |
That's the worst poll ever. Even the pollsters seem disbelieving, and clearly Sharon didn't believe it. Regardless, at least your link mentions some other polls.
I think it's funny that you state "Israel was fed up with negotiating" and follow with "negotiated land swaps". Sounds likely.
You are right in this sense: Sharon was very worried about the future demographic threats to Israel and the Gazan withdrawal was part of a plan of unilateral action (along with the wall construction) to create a "new reality on the ground". It sounds like you support this type of unilateral action, and believe Israel should not have to give up its settlements because - hey - they're no big deal, and we'll trade them for some Palestinian areas in the North that we don't want anyway.
It's just never going to happen.
Here is a quote from an Israeli blogger (who is certainly no left-wing peacenik) on Gaza
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-m...za-withdrawal/:
Quote:
In June 2005, two months before the withdrawal seven soldiers and civilians were killed in terror attacks, in January 2005 12 people were killed by terrorists operating out of the Strip. Hamas were even conducting attacks around the Gaza Strip rather than just in it. In December 2004 5 soldiers were killed at once when terrorists detonated a massive 1.5 tonnes of explosives underneath the Rafah crossing, it had gotten to the point where the army could no longer look after itself let alone settlers. It’s not surprising that the former military man Sharon looked at this situation and saw the writing on the wall.
The list of dead and wounded killed in Gaza when we were there provides a gruesome comparison as to the difference in casualties sustained in the wake of the Israeli withdrawal.
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